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Zack Weinstein
Zack Weinstein is an American actor best known for his roles in Glee and Sing It!. Biography At a young age, Weinstein became interested in acting and appeared in school and local productions. He decided to become an actor at the age of five or six. As an adult, Weinstein attended Skidmore College, a small liberal arts college in upstate New York, and majored in theatre. When he was nineteen years old, Weinstein got a summer job as a counselor at a camp in Maine. While he and other counselors were playing at the side of a river, he suffered an accident in which he was flipped over by a friend and broke his neck, shattering the C4 to C6 vertebrae. He was stabilized by three other camp counselors and brought to the hospital, where he was treated. Though he survived, Weinstein was ultimately paralyzed from the upper chest down. Despite his injuries, Weinstein returned to Skidmore to continue his studies, and eventually graduated in May 2009. He started an acting career, with his first role being in the 2009 short film Hooray for Hollywood, in which he portrayed a wheelchair-bound man. The following year, he got his next role (and first professional acting role outside of a commercial) in an episode of Glee, in which he portrayed disabled high-school student Sean Fretthold. A fan of the series, Weinstein got an audition for the role from his agent in February 2010, and learned that he got it a week-and-a-half later. Previously, Glee attracted criticism from disability advocates for casting an able-bodied actor, Kevin McHale, in the role of a wheelchair-bound character. However, Weinstein defended the casting choice. He spent a total of twelve hours filming two scenes in the episode. Following his appearance on Glee, Weinstein starred in regional theatre and continued to occasionally star in roles in TV shows such as NCIS and Criminal Minds. He recently starred in a theater play called Colossal, which was held at the Dallas Theatre Center, a major regional theatre. The play, in his own words was about "a college football player who breaks his neck during a game and how that affects his relationship with his father and his best friend on the team who is also his lover." Weinstein also recently starred in a TV show called Sing It!, a ten-episode comedy series that first premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and was scheduled to air on YouTube Red. In Sing It!, he portrayed Luke Crane, the disabled assistant to an executive producer. In his personal life, Weinstein is married to a woman, with whom he has his first child. On Criminal Minds Weinstein portrayed college student David Zimmerman in the Season Seven episode "Profiling 101". Filmography *Sing It! (2016) as Luke Crane (10 episodes) *Better Days Ahead (2013) as Mike (short) *Criminal Minds - "Profiling 101" (2012) TV episode - David Zimmerman *NCIS (2010) as Judd Dempsey *Glee (2010) as Sean Fretthold *Hooray for Hollywood (2009) as The Wheel Chair Guy (short) 'SOUNDTRACK' *One (2010) - Glee - 1 episode External Links For an up-to-date filmography, see here. Category:Real People Category:Actors